3 Lessons I Learned from Living In Canada as a German

One year ago I left Germany and came to Vancouver. Since then I‘ve been living in this beautiful city and enjoying the Canadian lifestyle with maple syrup and a lot of “sorry!”

During that year, I experienced all kind of weird and interesting situations. I learned a lot about myself and what it means when you live as a German in Canada.

To celebrate one year abroad and living in an American country I want to share my three highlights with you.

So, buckle up, dear nerds, and get ready to experience the “Canadian life” with a German woman.

1. Alleys are NOT the gateway to hell

Like every European, I watch a lot of American movies and TV shows. Especially from the US. Yes, this might be surprising for many Americans, but we LOVE your shit.

It’s great because you guys have such a big budget and therefore so many possibilities to create these awesome movies and shows. In Europe—especially Germany where I’m from—it’s a little bit more complicated and different in the movie industry, BUT that’s a topic for another article.

Back to alleys.

In almost every show or movie, a character goes into an alley and something BAD happens. It kinda feels like all the bad and evil in the world is waiting for you in this alleys. Like seriously… your worst nightmares could happen in these streets!

You just need to watch Batman movies. He always follows the bad guys in there or finds them there.

The thing also is that we don’t really have alleys in most of the European cities. I can’t think of any German city I visited which could have these specific streets. So, of course, when someone shows you how dangerous these streets are, you believe it. And especially because most of us are dumb people, we believe everything that’s coming out of the TV. I was no exception. Sometimes I’m still dumb like that. #canthelpit

So, in my first year I was very skeptical about alleys and I didn’t want to go in there until my Canadian roommate and I NEEDED to go in there. I remember how I stopped as soon as I noticed my roomie was about to go in this gateway to hell.

“Wait! We need to go in THERE!?” I asked her. Pure fear and panic on my face.

My roomie looked confused at me. “Yes, why? What’s the matter?”

“Well… there are always bad things happening in there!”

“What? Who says that?”

“Almost every single American movie and TV show!”

“Ok, listen, Julia. First of all we’re NOT in the US, and second of all, don’t believe what you’re watching on the TV! They manipulate you! So don’t be such a chicken and follow me.”

So you’ve figured by now I WENT in there and SURVIVED. #dramaqueen

What didn’t survive though was my cliché thinking about alleys. I mean, movies are really manipulating. I don’t say that there’s no danger at all to these alleys, but I also learned at that point that I shouldn’t be so dumb and blind to believe everything I’m watching. I should have known better.

Now to be honest, I’m kind of ashamed and embarrassed that I thought so badly of alleys. I mean, I consider myself as a very open-minded and intelligent person, but still I got manipulated by fear because of media. I guess I still have a lot to learn. Or how Yoda would say:

"Much to learn you still have, my young Padawan."

2. The German struggle is real or how I learned to be proud of my country (finally!)

This is kinda funny because I know that not many people would or will understand it. As Canadians or other nations, you are most of the time proud of your country. You show your patriotism and hold your flags up in the air proudly.

BUT Germans are not that way. We are in fact veeeery humble and quiet about being proud to be German. We don’t normally say it out loud, and we don’t hang our flags in our gardens or anywhere else. We don’t even wear any national colors except when it’s the soccer world cup. That’s seriously the ONLY exception when you’ll see Germans celebrating Germany in public.

So when I arrived in Canada, I first was a little bit uncomfortable to tell people that I’m from Germany. For me, it was not a big deal, and I didn’t want to talk about it much. But the funny and interesting thing was that other people wanted to talk about it with me.

I got so many excited and fascinated reactions to the fact that I’m from Germany that in the beginning, I got a little bit overwhelmed TBH.

“Oh, you’re from Germany! What a beautiful country. I really want to visit it one day.”

“You’re German? Wow! Germany is amazing!”

“Why are you guys so damn effective? It’s crazy how you guys work and how strong you are in developing.”

“I love Germany! I also have a German flag on my backpack and I want to live there so badly.”

First I just smiled and nodded, but I felt SO uncomfortable. Because, like I told you, as a German, you’re not used to talking proudly about Germany.

But time passed, I got more and more comfortable. And over time, something changed in myself. I felt a little bit more proud after every conversation, and soon I didn’t feel uncomfortable anymore talking about being German. I embraced it and owned it. HELL YES!

Funny, eh? You need to leave your home country to be finally proud of it. That’s really something I’m very grateful for since I’ve been living in Canada.

3. Smalltalk is not so awful and “How are you?” is nice if you mean it

Another common thing in an American country is that you say “How are you?” when you meet someone. Even if you’re just buying a coffee in a store, the staff will ask you.

That’s not really a THING in Europe or Germany. I mean, we ask people how they are, but only when we know them or when we officially meet for an event, over friends or any other official reason to meet someone.

We don’t ask someone randomly on the street or at coffee shops.

Why?

Well, I don’t know. I’d say Germans keep more to themselves. Don’t get me wrong, we are friendly and polite, but we don’t do “personal” with strangers who we just met.

Maybe that’s also an efficiency issue? Go in there, be polite, buy coffee, pay and get out with your coffee. Polite and efficient. That’s a German in a nutshell, I’d say.

As you can imagine now for me it was quite unusual and sometimes a little bit annoying. Because I figured over time that some people don’t care about an answer. They just throw the “how are you?” in your face but don’t wait for an answer.

I don’t like that at all! Why do you ask in the first place when you don’t care? Just don’t do it. I’m fine with that. Duh! #eyerolling

But there are also some people who are very eager to know what’s going on in your life and how you’re doing, and it doesn’t matter if you just met.

Well, in the beginning this smalltalk felt for me like walking through a minefield. I still hate smalltalk because who the fuck cares about the weather?!

BUT—and that was immensely surprising for me—when I went back to Germany after ten months, I missed it!

Can you believe it?!

I actually missed the “how are you?” and the total acceptance and normality that you could talk with anyone if you wanted to. Because I tried with some Germans, but they looked at me like I’m a crazy person.

I mean, I get that look a lot anyway, but it still made me sad. And I don’t say all Germans are like that. There are a few who you can talk to even if you don’t know each other, but it’s just not a normal thing to do. And that’s what I really missed. The normality of going out there and talk to randomly strangers without getting the “what a weirdo!” look.

So living in a foreign American country over a year made me more open, aware of bullshit clichés and proud of being German.

If that isn’t something, I don’t know what is. All I can say now is: Thank you, Canada, and all you lovely people for welcoming me and changing my life.